Inventions are always a product of vision and creativity whether they are world changing inventions like cars and computers or everyday conveniences like pump hairsprays, cordless tools and resealable soda bottles. New inventions like a cell phone change a person's life style, making communication more convenient and accessible virtually anywhere. Other inventions such as a snow scraper and brush combine two already existing inventions into an improved embodiment, reducing clutter in our lives and making daily winter chores much easier. Often necessity combined with a little creativity is the underlying motivator for an invention. Most inventions fill a relatively small need or perform a specialized limited function. If that need is shared by a sufficient number of consumers, an invention has a great potential for success.
People consume many gallons of bottled drinks and water, and they want their beverage to be cold. Bottled beverages quickly lose their chill and appeal once they are removed from a refrigerator and sit for a while on a desk or in a purse or book bag. Whether a household has an icemaker for crushed and cubed ice or relies upon traditional ice cube trays, members of the household face a similar problem when it comes to chilling a bottled beverage for on the go consumption. While a drinker can put ice and beverage into a commuter cup, the originating bottle or jug container is much more convenient and cleaner to carry. Trying to get ice cubes into the bottle or jug is impossible as the ice cubes often are too big to fit through the opening of the container. Trying to fill the bottle with crushed ice from the ice maker results in a wet and melting mess.
The prior art has put forth several designs for ice trays. Among these are:
U.S. Patent 2012/0055188 to Mark Levie describes a combination ice cube tray and ice cube lifter that includes a tray having a plurality of openings and a lifting device. The tray has one or more recesses, each of which has a bottom wall and side walls that extend upwardly from and contiguously around the bottom wall for forming one or more ice cubes therein. The lifting device has a base portion and a top member. The base portion includes one or more cradles configured to seat within the one or more recesses of the tray to seat against the bottom wall of each of the one or more recesses of the tray. Each of the one or more cradles is coupled to an upstanding member. The top member couples to the upstanding members.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,345,802 to Pamela R. Moore describes an article for forming a freezable substance and includes a body having at least one cavity. The cavity has an open top, an open bottom and side walls there between. The top has a maximum width Wm, with Wm being less than or equal to approximately eight hundred seventy five hundredth of an inch or twenty two and twenty three hundredth millimeters. The width Wm is chosen so that a long cylindrical ice cube is formed within the cavity. The ice cube so formed fits easily into original containers of beverages such as soda cans and bottles, so that the beverages are cooled in their original containers.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,971,352 to Kelly Kirks describes an ice bar tray for making various lengths of ice bars for use in different types and sizes of water bags. Each ice bar has a round cross section for ease in inserting into circular water fill openings in a water bag. The ice bar tray includes at least one elongated bar cylinder with a tray handle on each end. The bar cylinder has an elongated cylinder opening in a top of the cylinder for receiving water into a water channel. The water channel has a circular cross section. The water channel is disposed along a length of the elongated cylinder. When the water channel is filled with water and the water freezes, a round ice bar is formed therein. By flexing the ice bar tray, which is made of a flexible PVC plastic material and the like, the frozen ice bar is released outwardly from the water channel and through the cylinder opening. The ice bar is then inserted into the water fill opening in the water bag. The ice bar tray also includes a tray slide with at least one cylinder divider. By sliding the tray slide along the length of the water channel, the cylinder divider allows the user of the ice bar tray to make various lengths of ice bars. While an ice bar has a round cross section, it is also formed having a half round cross section or three quarter round cross section.
None of these prior art references describe the present invention.